That’s right, the 1.21 gigawatt’s that hit the clock tower in Back to the Future will do more than power the flux capacitor. It’s going to be channeled directly into your home.

An innovative way of generating and harvesting lightning has been proposed by Steve LeRoy in Illinois as the next move in environmentally friendly power.

In principal, a device creates small bolts of lightning in a controlled environment and then harvests the discharge produced. Think of a large Telsa coil with a giant transformer that conducts the excess energy into power.

A three foot spark will illuminate a standard light bulb for twenty minutes. LeRoy believes that he can power up to 3,000 homes for an entire day on just a single bolt of lightning!

[Inhabitant]

Right here in San Diego biologist Craig Ventre teeters on the verge of creating the first artificial life form on Earth. His group has created the first synthetic chromosome from lab materials, a feat in itself that is nothing short of magnificent.

They’ve previously introduced the genome into dead bacteria, completely changing its makeup. Now the trick is to introduce that same genome into a living host cell, where it will take over to become a new species.

So how is this brave new species going to be put to work? The bacteria could be released in the upper atmosphere, absorbing carbon dioxide in the battle against global warming. The process could also be used to create cures for life threating illnesses.

Dr. Ventre told the Guardian that this is “a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before”

Don’t be confused, Dr. Ventre isn’t in this racket for charity. In 1999 he was the founder and president of Celera Genomics, a company that was run parallel to the Human Genome Project. He tried to privatize the data and charge a fee to access the databases. The scientific community lashed out and produced a full sequence with full open access.

A similar concern is that he has already filed for a patent on the new species that he is about to create. Is he dipping his hands too far into the cookie jar again and this time will the scientific community have the power to gain access to the research?

Call me crazy but I’m concerned about a group of individuals that plan to legally own several types of living species.

Watch the future as it unfolds:
Subscribe to Bust A Change’s RSS Feed

[Froodee]

Last week scientists were given the green light to begin to create human-animal embryos at a mix of 99.9% human, 0.1% animal. Religious nuts are outraged and want to put a stop to it. They say that scientists are playing God.

The scientific community counters that the hybrids will allow them to discover treatments which could lead to a cure for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

The shortage of human eggs has put a damper on the progress being made to stem cell research. There is only two or three a month that are donated or released. However, animal eggs are always in high supply. So why not mix the two so that the process of finding cures can be expedited?

Dr Helen Watts of the Catholic Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics tells Sky News:

“Human conception is someting very special which should be kept separate from animal reproduction. Not only are we creating this embryo for destructive experiments, but we are further demeaning it by giving it a non-human parent.”

Yes, the embryos are still banned from being set into a human womb and scientists will still need to receive permission. Yet wouldn’t it be immoral to ban research that denies patients their health and lives? I say yes.

[Sky News]

When an asteroid the size of Manhattan hits the earth we are as dead as the dinosaurs. How can we preserve our civilization when the time comes?

The moon is scheduled to have it’s first base by 2024. Original plans were to take advantage of the moon’s resources and to serve as a launching pad for further exploration. Jim Burke of International Space University added a third to the list, a way to preserve our world.

Major asteroids or comets hit the earth every 100 million years and the last major impact was 65 million years ago. The clock is ticking and we never really know if we might be on a collision trajectory with larger objects in deep space until it may be too late.

“In the event of a global catastrophe, the ARC facilities will be prepared to reintroduce lost technology, art, history, crops, livestock, and, if necessary, even human beings to the Earth.”

So now the $100 million question, what goes inside the ark? It seems that billionaire philanthropists get the first say. Their donations will fund a major portion of the project.

You can bet your ass there will be no iPhones if Bill Gates is on that list.

[National Geographic]

Watch the future as it unfolds:
Subscribe to Bust A Change’s RSS Feed

So you want to know how to cheat death but don’t know if your ready to be frozen alive? The promise of cryonics is to preserve humans who can no longer be sustained by current medicine. The goal of this speculative science is to resuscitate people at some point in the future and restore them to health. The US has laws prohibiting cryonics to be performed on a patient until clinical death.

The idea of clinical death has been updated several times throughout modern history. Today it is defined as cessation of blood circulation and breathing. The term is updated every time a new method of resuscitation is discovered. So far CPR, defibrillation, and epinephrine injections are able to reverse this medical condition that precedes death. For all intensive purposes, even in the US, when your undergoing cryonics your doing it at a moment before you are actually dead.

Throughout human civilization we have been fascinated with the idea of longevity and immortality. From the ancient pharaohs in Egypt to the myth of immortal vampires, it seems as if we are always looking for another way to “rage against the dying of the light.”

The theory that cryonics could work is hinged on a few basic principles. Life needs to be able to be suspended and then reanimated with its basic structure in tact. A small creature called water bears do exactly this, yet have a fundamentally different structure to our own. We do know that it is a remote possibility because people have survived extreme cold with their hearts stopped for up to an hour.

Freezing temperatures cause cracks in cellular biology, so vitrification is used to allow tissues to be cooled with little or no ice damage. Even though this process has been improved over the years, there is still a minute measure of damage that needs to be fixed before we can bring someone back.

Fixing microscopic damage is the holy grail of not only cryonics but of medical science. You may have heard of it as nanotechnology or nanomedicine. Eventually computers will become so small that they will be able to course through your veins, repairing the smallest defects and problems at a cellular level. That means no cancer, no disease and eventually a way to drastically slow down the aging process.

You might be thinking that this all sounds great in theory and that maybe your kids will have access to it on day. The shocking conclusion is that it is availible today and Alcor, the largest cryonics company worldwide, will sign you up for $150,000. The best part is you don’t even have to pay for it out of your pocket, that’s what life insurance is for.

When I heard about the prospect to open my eyes even one more time after legal death I signed up on the spot. That was over three years ago. Some people tell me that I might as well play the lottery because the odds are so far against me. Yet I believe in the advancement of science and the wonders of innovation. If I had to sign those papers again today and they stated an outrageous chance like .1% to come back to full health I would happily scribble my name in ink once more.

[Alcor FAQ] [The Cryonics Society] [Society for Cryobiology]

Watch the future as it unfolds:
Subscribe to Bust A Change’s RSS Feed